[ExI] Homelessness (was Re: Social right to have a living)

[spike]

>... On Behalf Of Jeff Davis

>... To me money is freedom and lack of money is non-freedom...

{...sniffle, honk...wipes tear of joy from eyes...}  Jeff, I am proud of
you, my son.
...

>...And I was "homeless" for many years.  And after the first week, it was
voluntary.  And I loved it.  It was very close to the freedom that most
people talk about, and buy sailboats to dream about.  It was in the SF Bay
Area.  I started out in an econoline van and worked my way up to a small
motorhome... Best, Jeff Davis

Jeff made a number of interesting comments, but do let me go off on a fun
tangent with this one.

An innovation more recent than young Jeff's time in the econoline van makes
living on the road waaay more interesting and practical: wifi.  

In the old days (anything before 2000) anyone who is good with a wrench
could set up a ratty old van to be an acceptable rolling shelter for one
person.  You could build a bed back there, arrange a rudimentary cooking
facility, with only an old toilet seat, a lawn chair, some plastic garbage
bags one can create a functional portable toilet of sorts (gory details
available on request, but do use your imagination.)  It isn't luxury or
anything, but it is much easier than tent camping, sleeping on the ground,
the kind my wife and I did, over 11 days, circumambulating Mount Rainier
voluntarily.  But any ratty old van that runs?  All the necessities of life.

But now we have all that Jeff had in the 70s, plus access in a hundred
places in every little town to the internet, so you can look up stuff, find
out what goes on, keep in touch with friends, and perhaps most importantly,
you can make notes or write your road novel.

On that last comment, consider two excellent road novels, Kerouac's On the
Road, and my own personal favorite Travels With Charlie.  This last is my
favorite of all road stories, and my second favorite of all of Steinbeck's
excellent body of work, of which I have read all.  If Steinbeck had had
internet, how would that work have been different?  Being able to write
while actually on the road has made some excellent vacation narratives for
me, better than the photos I took.

Do check out Steinbeck's Travels With Charlie, the book for which he won the
Nobel Prize.

spike